World over, the official working time is commonly observed as 8pm to 5pm from Monday to Friday. This is known as the forty-hour workweek. Its existence allows the working class to have time for leisure, rest and recuperation so that their health and productivity stay intact. But how did it come to be?

In the beginning, there was the industrial revolution which started in the United Kingdom in 1760 and led to the introduction of factory work. According to Be Businessed, a web-based business knowledge resource, factory work was marred with many negative aspects, one of which was long working hours; ranging from 10 to 16 a day for six days a week.

Recognising the bad working conditions, Welsh textile manufacturer Robert Owen introduced a 10-hour workday in 1810. According to America’s Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), Owen further reduced the working hours to eight in 1817 with the slogan: "Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” Owen’s decision resulted in workers in different parts of the UK also demanding for and being granted fewer work hours. 

In the United States, the demand for fewer working hours was first set in motion in 1791 by carpenters in Philadelphia. The movement continued through the 1800s with workers strongly lobbying for eight-hour workdays through labour unions. According to media website Politifact, the campaign culminated to a violent protest in May 1886 which left a few law enforcement officers and civilians dead. Thereafter, the issue received national and international recognition.

The first person to fully institute the five-day forty-hour work week is American inventor Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company. According to History, a web-based knowledge resource, Ford announced the change from 48-hour workweek to 40-hour workweek in September 1926. He believed that long working hours reduced productivity.

Workers in the rest of the US continued to strike and protest until then President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed the Fair Labour Standards Act in 1938 which initially reduced the working hours to forty-four per week. By 1940, the working hours had been changed to 40 hours a week across the US. 

Around the world, the five-day forty-hour workweek spread in the 20th Century through colonisation during which time colonial governments established administrative offices, factories, transport lines among other things.

In the post-independent era, some governments have adopted labour-related international treaties put in place by the International Labour Organization (ILO). One of treaties, according to Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, is the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention which advocated for an eight-hour workday as soon as ILO established in 1919 after World War I.

Although the forty-hour workweek is still largely upheld in principle around the world, increased digitisation has resulted in people working for longer hours because they can work from anywhere.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com